


The Boy and the Tampon Machine

by pen_name_136



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Developing Friendships, Empathy, F/M, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Tampons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 08:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1380493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pen_name_136/pseuds/pen_name_136
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John is hiding in the bathroom from his abusive "friends" and Vriska walks in to see him staring at a tampon dispenser. Usually, Vriska wouldn't ever associate with anybody as nerdy looking as John, but for once she makes an exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy and the Tampon Machine

I take a moment and try to piece together what is going on. A boy, I’m pretty sure he’s a freshman, stares intently at the… tampon dispenser? Yup. He’s definitely staring at the tampon dispenser.

He’s gangly and awkward looking, with hair that sticks up at all kinds of odd angles. He isn’t very tall or muscular, actually he’s quite the opposite. Large, black glasses sit on the tip of his nose and his frown reveals a pair of buck teeth. To be frank, he’s a nerd-- not in an insulting way or anything, “nerd” is just a really accurate description of him. Everything about him kind of screams, well, geek.

Why is there a boy in the girls’ bathroom? Why is he staring at a tampon machine? Why is there a group of upperclassmen standing outside the door yelling John?

More importantly, what am I going to do? All I planned on was touching up my make-up, not finding some dork in the bathroom.

I open my mouth to say something, but quickly stop myself as the boy digs through his pockets and pulls out a quarter. No. There’s no way he’s going to… but he does.

He deposits his money into the metal box and begins to turn the handle on the side with a look of pure curiosity on his face.

I wonder if he knows that he’s messing around with a tampon dispenser. It dawns on me that he’s probably never actually had a reason to use a tampon dispenser. At least… I hope he’s never had a reason.

He cranks the knob a few more times and a white package falls into the slot at the bottom of the metal box. He tears the thin plastic open, and I stifle a laugh as he dumps a tampon into the palm of his hand. His jaw drops, his eyes look like they’re going to bulge out of his head. He gasps, absolutely horrified by the piece cotton he’s holding. He juggles the tampon in his hands and finally chucks it away from him to the farthest corner of the bathroom.

I lose it.

The laughter I’d been holding back bursts out of me and echoes off the tile floor and gets lost somewhere in the florescent lights. I really try to stop chuckling at him, but I can’t. My hand flies to my mouth in an attempt to silence myself, but my voice still fills the otherwise silent bathroom.

The expression on the boy’s face instantly goes from horrified to petrified as he realizes I’ve been watching him. He has the deer-in-the-headlights look as his cheeks turn a deep shade of red. He darts into the nearest bathroom stall as I finally manage to reign back my laughter.

I still giggle as I knock on the door of the stall that he holed himself up in.

“Is there anybody in here?”

Silence.

“Helloooooooo?” I say as I pound on the door.

“U-um, there’s no one in here but me… A girl. I am a girl,” he replies in a high pitched falsetto.

“Get out of the stall, you idiot. I think we both know you’re boy. Come out of there,” I choke back laughter and manage to keep my voice even. I wait.

No response.

I knock a few more times.

Nothing.

I try again, taking a few steps back from the door.

Ever so slowly, it creaks open. His cheeks are still flushed and he stares at the ground, slumping over as he starts to walk out of the stall. He treads through a small puddle of water and suddenly face plants a few inches away from my feet. I hear his head connect to the ground with a small ‘crack!’

Ouch, that’s got to hurt.

I know it’s not nice to laugh at the poor kid, but a small chuckle makes its way out of my mouth.

The boy pushes himself up a little and looks at me like a wounded kitten. Tears collect in his blue eyes and threaten to spill over. 

Feeling guilty, I instantly lose my smile and extend my hand to him. 

He flinches at it and gives me a funny expression.

I then realize that I’d offered him my prosthetic hand. Whoops. No wonder he looks confused.The metal joints and plastic fingers do look a little alien I suppose. I have a tendency to forget that my arm isn’t real until someone points it out or stares at it. And that boy is definitely staring at it. I guess I can add artificial limbs to the list of things he hasn’t seen before-- along with tampons.

I blush and offer him my other hand instead. The kid has probably had enough trauma in his young life for the day.

Still, he looks at my outstretched fingers suspiciously as though he’s waiting for them to bite him or something. He gingerly takes my real hand as I hoist him up to his feet. Not that he stays there for long. His wet shoes slide across the floor and he falls to the ground once again, but this time I join him.

I smack my forehead against his as we land. God, that hurt.

“Sorry…” He mumbles. 

I finally get both of us back onto our feet and away from that dangerous puddle. Seriously. Can people not get water everywhere when they use the bathroom? I glance into the mirror to make sure my make-up is alright and I pull a tube of blue lipstick out of my jeans and touch up my lips-- like I had intended to do in the first place-- and notice the boy looming behind me. I raise an eyebrow at him and wait for him to speak.

He doesn’t.

Leaning against the sink, I take another look at him.

His gaze meets mine and he stares at the ground once more.

There’s an ugly bruise splotched with yellow and purple that’s begun to fade on the side of his face. His lip looks like it’s split and scabbing over. The sleeve of his shirt is torn a bit, the white material of it marred with grass stains, and his knees and shorts are covered in mud. What the hell happened to him?

“Hey, John,” some kid screams from outside the door, “Come on out! We know you’re in there!”

The boy flinches at the voice and covers his ears while he tightly shuts his eyes. The look of fear that remains on his face is enough to tell me what’s wrong with him.

Everything makes sense..

“You’re John. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah…” he whispers.

“Let me guess. You were being picked on and beaten up and decided to hide in the bathroom, but accidentally hid in the wrong one? How long have you been hiding from those jerks?”

“Oh! No no no,” he replies quickly, “They’re not jerks! They’re my...friends?”

“You don’t sound too sure there,” I answer, lifting an eyebrow. 

John mumbles something that I don’t hear.

I push off the sink and walk over to him. I squeeze his shoulder reassuringly and lift his head until he’s looking me in the eye.

“Did your friends do this?” I say, pointing to the fading bruise on his head.

He nods slightly.

I brush some dirt off his shirt while I continue, “Do they call you names and make you feel horrible about yourself?

“Not really. Well, kind of...Yeah…”

“Then they aren’t really your-”

“No! You don’t understand!” John says, pulling away from me. He wraps his arms around himself and sniffles a little bit. “You don’t get it. I didn’t have any friends in middle school and I am not going to back to being alone…”

I understood all of his pain. I had felt it at one point. I didn’t get along with people too well. I’d been called a whole dictionary full of names. I was weird. I played in the mud and wrestled with the boys during football, instead of playing with Barbies and playing princess. I was alone. Well, maybe ‘alone’ isn’t the best word to use.However, I knew one thing was for sure. I was different.

Then there was the whole car crash and losing and arm thing. Losing my arm just added to my whole don’t-talk-to-her-she’s-a-freak factor. I never got sympathy. I never got a kind word. I was singled out because I looked and acted funny. It was then quickly learned that I was on my own. It hurt.

It hurt having nobody to talk to. It hurt never having a best friend by my side. It hurt having people judge me by what I lacked instead of what I had. Granted, being a bitch probably didn't help things.

However, one day I decided that I didn’t care anymore. As far as I was concerned everybody else could go die in a ditch. I didn’t need them. They had already made it clear that they didn’t need me. I resolved that I was better off without them anyway.

If it felt right, I did it. If I thought it was a good idea, then I tried to bring it to life. If I got lonely… I comforted myself. I suppose I’d resigned to leading a bit of a lonely existence when I pushed everybody out.

The only person I really talked to was my sister, but when she left for college all I was left with was myself. But maybe, just maybe, John and I wouldn’t have to be alone again. Besides, meeting in a girls’ bathroom wasn't the weirdest way to start a friendship… I think? Okay, never mind. It’s actually really weird. But hey, it’s worth a shot. 

“I do understand,” I say, pulling John into a tight embrace.

He tenses up at the sudden kind gesture., but relaxes into my arms and I hear him let out a choked sob.

“I just don’t want to be alone,” he says into my shoulder.

“Who says you have to be?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to be my friend…”

“Hey! That’s unfair. I could totally be your friend.”

“But you’re a senior!”

“Soooooooo?” I say with a chuckle.

John pulls back from me and searches my face for any hint of sarcasm or deceit. He couldn’t seem to find any. He sighs and lets a huge, buck toothed grin form on his face. I smile back in return.

“John! Get out here or we’re going to come in there after you!” one of the John’s tormentors say from outside.

Did those jerks even know I was in here with him? Really? Fine. Whatever. The idiots lingering outside the bathroom door are dumber than I thought. I glare at the door and an idea strikes me. An idea that might just salvage the rest of John’s reputation.

“Okay. Don’t freak out, but I know how we’re going to get you out of here. Now, get ready to man up.”

A few minutes later, John and I emerge from the bathroom and a group of four boys crowd around the door. I exit first, adjusting my lipstick once again. John trails out behind me.

The boys’ jaws instantly drop to the floor. They looked confused and baffled and idiotic. It was perfect.

I laugh silently to myself.

John’s face turns his signature shade of red. He must be quite a sight.

My blue lipstick is smeared all over his cheek and at the corner of his mouth. At first he was a little hesitant to let me kiss him. He quickly changed his mind (claiming that he only went along with it to get out of the bathroom without feeling shameful).

I place his arm around my waist and pull him close to me. I send a wink to the clique of boys, and we make our way down the hall. The boys still haven’t moved. Maybe it was because it looks like John had made out with some random chick in the bathroom. Or perhaps it was because I snarled something at them that might have been a threat on their lives before we left. It was probably the latter of the two. Probably. But if any of them ever touched John again they’d probably come back to school with a broken rib or two. Maybe. I’m not saying I’d do it, but if I did who could blame me?

Once we are out their sight, we sprint down the hallway and out the doors. I thought that I could probably get used to this. I could get used to having John around. For once, both of us had a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for reading. Any comments/critiques more than welcome. I love when homework and fanfics can overlap Thanks again!


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